Wednesday, March 01, 2006
We took Oliver to the zoo at the weekend. Purportedly, this was to show him all the pretty animals, but I had an ulterior motive - I wanted to introduce him to the collection of farm animals in the petting zoo. As the photo shows, he decided that sheep were OK, and we can have a couple of those. What the picture fails to show is his first reaction. When the foolish sheep stuck his head through the bars, Oliver put his nose within a couple of inches of the sheep's nose, stared at it for a few seconds and then swung his arm in an impressive roundhouse punch and smacked the sheep on the cheek. He has also become more violent with our cats recently. I am waiting for one of them to lose patience with him, and we will see how well he learns. Oliver gave a resounding thumbs-down to the pigs, was uninterested in the horse, not overly bothered by goats, but did approve of the Maran chickens. But the sheep was a hit, in more ways than one.
When it comes to the practicalities of putting ourselves in a position where we can actually live in the country, Rita and I are no closer now than we were four months ago. However, we have solved one problem this week: Lattelekom, who previously said that they would not put a telephone (internet) line out to the house, have admitted that perhaps they would if:
a. we convinced all the neighbours (three other houses) on the way to ours to sign up as well, or
b. we paid to have the trench for the cable dug by a private company.
We will speak to the neighbours this weekend and find out if they are interested, but even if they are not, one of the advantages of living in relatively cheap Eastern Europe is that bills for digging are unlikely to be terrifyingly high. Of course, that advantage has to be offset against our salaries, but we are hopeful...
When it comes to the practicalities of putting ourselves in a position where we can actually live in the country, Rita and I are no closer now than we were four months ago. However, we have solved one problem this week: Lattelekom, who previously said that they would not put a telephone (internet) line out to the house, have admitted that perhaps they would if:a. we convinced all the neighbours (three other houses) on the way to ours to sign up as well, or
b. we paid to have the trench for the cable dug by a private company.
We will speak to the neighbours this weekend and find out if they are interested, but even if they are not, one of the advantages of living in relatively cheap Eastern Europe is that bills for digging are unlikely to be terrifyingly high. Of course, that advantage has to be offset against our salaries, but we are hopeful...
